Close to 100 snarl ups across more than 30 miles of road in Belfast were reported at evening rush hour on Monday, according to data generated by leading global traffic specialists.
Over the last week, journey times substantially higher than normal were recorded in Belfast, including five occasions motorists were taking what would be more than 20 minutes to travel a distance of 10 kilometres, or 6.2 miles, the TomTom Traffic Index reported.
The index also reveals the worst time for traffic jams and congestion is between 5pm and 6pm on a Tuesday.
More: No ‘quick fix’ to ‘daily gridlock’ in Belfast warns roads expert
No trains running out of Grand Central Station, various works around the infrastructure, and the continued closure of the Lisburn to Belfast line, along with some major roadworks, are being blamed for what many motorists are calling a daily gridlock on roads in the city.
Translink are still not able to say when the station will be open to trains or when the key Lisburn to Belfast line will be running again.
“Train services will commence operation from Belfast Grand Central Station once we have received the relevant safety certification,” a spokesperson said.
Chris Conway, Translink chief executive, previously said: “Everyone will want to make sure that everything we do is safe so it is important that we do everything with due diligence. We hope to be able to announce a date for opening very soon.”
According to TomTom, at 5.40pm on Monday, there were 94 traffic jams across 33 miles of road in the city. During the earlier rush hour, it was calculated motorists would take just over 20 minutes to travel 10km, over four minutes more than usual.
Data generated over a seven-day period reveals that there was only one time across day or night when the actual time taken to complete a journey was lower than what TomTom calculated as the usual time.
During morning rush hour last Thursday, the time it would take for a car to travel 10km was more than 21 minutes, five more than usual.
All stations along the Lisburn-Belfast are closed while buses operate between the various points along the route. Further, the Dublin Enterprise is running only to Portadown with buses operating from Newry to Belfast.
In 2023, Belfast was ranked at 162 out of 387 cities across 55 countries for time taken to travel, with an across the board average of 17 minutes to make10km. It was 68 in the ranking of the small cities of Europe.
According to TomTom, the very worst cities for traffic congestion were London at number one and Dublin at number two.
The index is also able to dive down into when the traffic is worst. In Belfast, it is between 5pm and 6pm on a Tuesday.
